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Posted 4 years ago
ho2cultcha
(5051 items)
This is a female tanuki [raccoon fox] holding a large mushroom. I don't know what the hole in her back is for, but i saw them on several old ones online. apparently females ones like this are pretty rare. I think it's pretty old - but not sure yet.
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Thinking out loud, here, and hopefully getting the discussion rolling...
First and perhaps most usefully, I remembered seeing a tanuki much like yours - and I managed to locate it on Etsy just now. It's a male counterpart to your female: https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/602586004/very-old-signed-japanese-tanuki-pottery
The style is so similar that this style may originally have been produced as a matching pair. (Looked at in that way, I suspect think there may be some symbolism in the implements they hold, too.)
As to the hole in the back... for what it's worth, I have an old bronze tanuki that has a similar hole at the base of its neck. The seller pointed it out at the time and observed that it would originally have had a cover in the form of a sedge hat. Unfortunately, the hat was lost at some point. My bronze tanuki was sold to me as an incense burner, presumably because it's hollow and has that hole; but to be honest I think it is purely an okimono (ornament).
I'm mentioning this last bit because I'm wondering if the hole in the back of yours might also be missing a "hat" cover. The one on mine is a bit higher, so perhaps it's less likely in your case. The one on Etsy has the same hole in the back, with no cover, so perhaps - as you said - they're just made that way?
Thank you Rhine. i found quite a few similar old tenuki's online and they also had this hole in the back w/ no explanation for it. The man who sold it to me thought it might be used as a hand warmer. You'd drop the coals thru the hole and warm your hands on her head. it does feel like it would work well, but no idea really.
Oh, that's a thought! He's talking about teaburi (literally translated as hand-warmer), or possibly hibachi (literally, fire bowl or fire pot).
Searching on teaburi - in Japanese - gets you some "upright" tanuki not too different from yours: https://tinyurl.com/8p5dp5a8
Whereas searching on hibachi gives you a number of wide-mouthed bowls with tanuki decoration on the edge: https://tinyurl.com/t76u9tz4
Incidentally, I did find a mention in English of a tanuki teaburi on this page:
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/tanuki.shtml
I'm starting to think that might be the answer for your tanuki... and possibly mine, too. Thanks for sharing these ideas!
P.S. I used TinyUrl as a link shortener above because Google image search URLs are just too long to post into a short comment ;)